Our old analogy of the fire remains7 the most workable one. The fire need not blaze like electricity nor boil like boiling water; its point is that it blazes more than water and warms more than light. The wife is like the fire, or to put things in their proper proportion, the fire is like the wife. Like the fire, the woman is expected to cook: not to excel in cooking, but to cook; to cook better than her husband who is earning the coke by lecturing on botany or breaking stones. Like the fire, the woman is expected to tell tales to the children, not original and artistic8 tales, but tales—better tales than would probably be told by a first-class cook. Like the fire, the woman is expected to illuminate9 and ventilate, not by the most startling revelations or the wildest winds of thought, but better than a man can do it after breaking stones or lecturing. But she cannot be expected to endure anything like this universal duty if she is also to endure the direct cruelty of competitive or bureaucratic10 toil11. Woman must be a cook, but not a competitive cook; a school mistress, but not a competitive schoolmistress; a house-decorator but not a competitive house-decorator; a dressmaker, but not a competitive dressmaker. She should have not one trade but twenty hobbies; she, unlike the man, may develop all her second bests. This is what has been really aimed at from the first in what is called the seclusion12, or even the oppression, of women. Women were not kept at home in order to keep them narrow; on the contrary, they were kept at home in order to keep them broad. The world outside the home was one mass of narrowness, a maze13 of cramped14 paths, a madhouse of monomaniacs. It was only by partly limiting and protecting the woman that she was enabled to play at five or six professions and so come almost as near to God as the child when he plays at a hundred trades. But the woman’s professions, unlike the child’s, were all truly and almost terribly fruitful; so tragically15 real that nothing but her universality and balance prevented them being merely morbid17. This is the substance of the contention18 I offer about the historic female position. I do not deny that women have been wronged and even tortured; but I doubt if they were ever tortured so much as they are tortured now by the absurd modern attempt to make them domestic empresses and competitive clerks at the same time. I do not deny that even under the old tradition women had a harder time than men; that is why we take off our hats. I do not deny that all these various female functions were exasperating19; but I say that there was some aim and meaning in keeping them various. I do not pause even to deny that woman was a servant; but at least she was a general servant.
The shortest way of summarizing the position is to say that woman stands for the idea of Sanity20; that intellectual home to which the mind must return after every excursion on extravagance. The mind that finds its way to wild places is the poet’s; but the mind that never finds its way back is the lunatic’s. There must in every machine be a part that moves and a part that stands still; there must be in everything that changes a part that is unchangeable. And many of the phenomena21 which moderns hastily condemn22 are really parts of this position of the woman as the center and pillar of health. Much of what is called her subservience23, and even her pliability24, is merely the subservience and pliability of a universal remedy; she varies as medicines vary, with the disease. She has to be an optimist25 to the morbid husband, a salutary pessimist26 to the happy-go-lucky husband. She has to prevent the Quixote from being put upon, and the bully27 from putting upon others. The French King wrote—
“Toujours femme varie Bien fol qui s’y fie,”
but the truth is that woman always varies, and that is exactly why we always trust her. To correct every adventure and extravagance with its antidote28 in common-sense is not (as the moderns seem to think) to be in the position of a spy or a slave. It is to be in the position of Aristotle or (at the lowest) Herbert Spencer, to be a universal morality, a complete system of thought. The slave flatters; the complete moralist rebukes29. It is, in short, to be a Trimmer in the true sense of that honorable term; which for some reason or other is always used in a sense exactly opposite to its own. It seems really to be supposed that a Trimmer means a cowardly person who always goes over to the stronger side. It really means a highly chivalrous30 person who always goes over to the weaker side; like one who trims a boat by sitting where there are few people seated. Woman is a trimmer; and it is a generous, dangerous and romantic trade.
The final fact which fixes this is a sufficiently31 plain one. Supposing it to be conceded that humanity has acted at least not unnaturally32 in dividing itself into two halves, respectively typifying the ideals of special talent and of general sanity (since they are genuinely difficult to combine completely in one mind), it is not difficult to see why the line of cleavage has followed the line of sex, or why the female became the emblem33 of the universal and the male of the special and superior. Two gigantic facts of nature fixed34 it thus: first, that the woman who frequently fulfilled her functions literally35 could not be specially36 prominent in experiment and adventure; and second, that the same natural operation surrounded her with very young children, who require to be taught not so much anything as everything. Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren’t. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment (even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself too exacting37 and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world. But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary38, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery39, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges41 in the home, as a man might drudge40 at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling42, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors43 and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene44; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious45, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.
But though the essential of the woman’s task is universality, this does not, of course, prevent her from having one or two severe though largely wholesome46 prejudices. She has, on the whole, been more conscious than man that she is only one half of humanity; but she has expressed it (if one may say so of a lady) by getting her teeth into the two or three things which she thinks she stands for. I would observe here in parenthesis47 that much of the recent official trouble about women has arisen from the fact that they transfer to things of doubt and reason that sacred stubbornness only proper to the primary things which a woman was set to guard. One’s own children, one’s own altar, ought to be a matter of principle—or if you like, a matter of prejudice. On the other hand, who wrote Junius’s Letters ought not to be a principle or a prejudice, it ought to be a matter of free and almost indifferent inquiry48. But take an energetic modern girl secretary to a league to show that George III wrote Junius, and in three months she will believe it, too, out of mere16 loyalty49 to her employers. Modern women defend their office with all the fierceness of domesticity. They fight for desk and typewriter as for hearth50 and home, and develop a sort of wolfish wifehood on behalf of the invisible head of the firm. That is why they do office work so well; and that is why they ought not to do it.
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1
socialists
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| 社会主义者( socialist的名词复数 ) | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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3
levity
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| n.轻率，轻浮，不稳定，多变 | |
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leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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harassing
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| v.侵扰，骚扰( harass的现在分词 )；不断攻击（敌人） | |
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indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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illuminate
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| vt.照亮，照明；用灯光装饰；说明，阐释 | |
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10
bureaucratic
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| adj.官僚的，繁文缛节的 | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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12
seclusion
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| n.隐遁，隔离 | |
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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tragically
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| adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地 | |
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16
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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contention
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| n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张 | |
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19
exasperating
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| adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
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20
sanity
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| n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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22
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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23
subservience
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| n.有利，有益；从属（地位），附属性；屈从，恭顺；媚态 | |
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24
pliability
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| n.柔韧性；可弯性 | |
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25
optimist
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| n.乐观的人，乐观主义者 | |
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26
pessimist
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| n.悲观者；悲观主义者；厌世 | |
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27
bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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28
antidote
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| n.解毒药，解毒剂 | |
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29
rebukes
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| 责难或指责( rebuke的第三人称单数 ) | |
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30
chivalrous
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| adj.武士精神的；对女人彬彬有礼的 | |
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31
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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32
unnaturally
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| adv.违反习俗地；不自然地；勉强地；不近人情地 | |
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33
emblem
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| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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34
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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39
drudgery
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| n.苦工，重活，单调乏味的工作 | |
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40
drudge
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| n.劳碌的人；v.做苦工，操劳 | |
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41
drudges
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| n.做苦工的人，劳碌的人( drudge的名词复数 ) | |
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42
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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43
labors
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| v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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44
hygiene
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| n.健康法，卫生学 （a.hygienic） | |
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45
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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46
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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47
parenthesis
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| n.圆括号，插入语，插曲，间歇，停歇 | |
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48
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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49
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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50
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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